With so many different kinds of devices and items sporting Internet of Things (IoT) capability these days, one can only wonder just what other kinds of things around the home that will embrace the “smart” prefix in its name. One61 Studio has just the thing, a smart hat, that will not only make the wearer look fashionable, but also be able to remain connected to a certain degree as well. Enter the Kaptur Smart Hat, which is the first Bluetooth enabled, LCD hat with mobile app and a rechargeable battery to boot.This is one smart hat that will be able to provide the wearer with a whole new level of individualism through uploaded images, GIFs and memes. This web-connected hat will boast of an LCD display that allows users to show off their favorite GIFs, short videos as well as memes. Specially developed by Bioworld’s new technology division, One61 Studio, the Kaptur Smart Hat will play nice with just about any kind of smartphone as long as there is a Bluetooth connection. Wearers will be able to upload their favorite media, drawing from a library of self-created content, or even making use of content that they have downloaded or socially shared.One61 Studio has also worked with mobile app developers and technology startups such as SAY Wearables, resulting in the app and screen components for the Kaptur Smart Hat. This particular app makes it easy to manage images, churn out animated GIFs from short videos, as well as tag content using the opt-in feature in order for users to socially share their selections with other Kaptur wearers. This is somewhat similar to a ‘playlist’ for music. Production of the Kaptur Smart Hat is expected to commence later this year, with the final product being tipped for an August 2018 rollout. Any takers?

When the L16 takes a picture, 10 or more cameras fire simultaneously, capturing slightly different perspectives of the same scene. The L16 intelligently chooses a combination of its 28mm, 70mm, and 150mm modules to use in each shot, depending on the level of zoom. These individual shots are then computationally fused together to create an incredibly high-resolution 52MP photograph.

Flash drive maker Nimbus Data may be a smaller storage provider than such major players as SanDisk/WD, Samsung and Toshiba, but it is now ahead of them all in one key category: drive capaciousness.Nimbus this week introduced its ExaDrive DC100, the largest-capacity (100TB) solid-state drive ever produced. In addition to having more than three times the capacity of the closest competitor (32TB from Samsung and SanDisk/WD), Nimbus claims the ExaDrive draws 85 percent less power per terabyte, reducing the total cost of ownership per terabyte by 42 percent compared to competing enterprise SSDs.

While we have seen our fair share of smart devices in the past that rely on voice commands through Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri and other equivalents, the future might not just rely on speaking to your devices and appliances around the home to get them going. Perhaps some of them might work just as well through the use of gesture controls, and this is the main idea that fueled the creation of the AIUR 360° Air Gesture Control Hi-Fi Speaker that has just launched on Kickstarter recently. Touted to be the most advanced gesture control Hi-Fi speaker in the market when it arrives, it is said to be jam-packed with features and functions that will elevate the music listening experience.

The AIUR 360° Air Gesture Control Hi-Fi Speaker is very different from your regular set of speakers that will be able to take advantage of perhaps one or two gestures at most. This is because AIUR will make use of an advanced core technology that boasts of 3D infrared sensing which is more nuanced and sensitive compared to other competitors. With complex pattern recognition algorithms embedded into the software, working alongside a high tech 15mm sensor module, this enables the AIUR to accurately detect more than 10 kinds of hand movements as well as gestures, as long as these are performed within a range of 11 inches. To make things more interesting, there is an LED light that adds a life-like quality and conveniently informs you of any changes visually made via gesture control.
Since it is primarily a speaker, sound quality is of utmost importance, so rest assured that the AIUR will be able to outperform other speakers in its class. This is because it has been specially developed using the patented technology of “F-Round” when it comes to echo cancellation and noise reduction, while making use of DSP Technology and 3D Surround Sound in order to offer powerful and clear sound through its pair of stereo speakers. It hooks up wirelessly via Bluetooth 4.2, and the rechargeable 6000mAh onboard battery delivers approximately 12 hours of streaming music. To sweeten the deal, the AIUR has a water-resistant exterior, making it safe for anyone to enjoy music even while they’re taking a shower.

Have just discovered one limitation incidentally... playing local vdo. Found a work around of just drag 'n dropping the file into Chrome and that worked but bugger me if an update just today didn't cut it off (just copies the file to Downloads now).

Found a solution that I'm testing right now - Videostream from the app store, seems to be working but audio's a bit muted.

Sorted it out. Volume on Chromecast was set to max and when I lowered that (and raised it on TV) it cleared up.

Other than that hiccup I'm amazed at how seamless it all is - barely a hitch or any buffering in sight as yet. Thought for sure our crappy IntraGoogles connection would struggle but wife and kids were on iPads last night and I was pissing around with all this no worries.

THE BEST OF CHROMECAST AND ATV? —
Mysterious Google-branded 4K Android TV dongle shows up at the FCC [Updated]
This Google-branded device looks like a Chromecast on steroids.
RON AMADEO - 4/10/2018, 10:00 PM

The FCC just dropped a major surprise on us. It has documentation of a Google-branded HDMI dongle that runs Android TV and comes with a remote! It almost looks like a next-gen Chromecast. The documents, which were spotted by reddit user 513, show off pictures, specs, and even the manual.

The device is manufactured by "Shenzhen SEI Robotics Co. Ltd." with the model number "SN5B6AD," and it is identified as a "4K ATV Stick." Unless we're seeing an outrageous level of trademark infringement, this is a Google device, as it is covered in Google "G" logos and comes with the Google Assistant.

The manual—which is full of terrible English and definitely needs an edit pass—describes an Android TV device with a quad-core Amlogic S905X SoC (four Cortex A53s at 1.5GHz or 2GHz), 2GB of RAM, and 8GB of storage. The device supports hardware-accelerated video decoding at 4K/60FPS from both H.265 and Google's own VP9 codec. The manual doesn't mention HDR support, but other manufacturers list the S905X SoC as supporting HDR10. There's also a remote with all the usual set-top box buttons, along with a dedicated Google Assistant button.

Android TV really needs a Google-blessed device right now. Google's last (and so far only) Android TV device has been the under-powered Nexus Player. While it had a legendary upgrade streak from Android 5.0 all the way up to Android 8.0, Google recently dropped major update support for the device. Google devices are the only Android products that get fast, reliable updates, and they have unlockable bootloaders, making them excellent developer devices. With the existing device lineup, there is no way to buy an Android TV device that will get Android P in a timely manner.

Google's TV strategy had long been split between bigger, more functional Android TV set-top boxes and smaller, easier-to-use Chromecast devices. While this is totally in character for Google, it has been a confusing landscape for consumers. Android TV devices support Chromecast, so a small, cheap device like this looks like it would combine the best of both worlds. The device in the pictures (which is admittedly just a prototype) looks like it would be pretty cheap. The size and specs closely match the 2017 Amazon Fire TV, which has an MSRP of $69 and is often on sale for $50.

Hopefully we'll hear more about this at Google I/O 2018, which is just a month away.

Update: A few things to add. First this would not be the first time a random Chinese company did the manufacturing and FCC paperwork for a Google product. The Pixel Buds were submitted by the "Weifang Goertek Electronics Co.,Ltd," and don't forget all the phones that were also manufactured by other companies. Second, we contacted Google PR about the validity of this leak, and got back "We don't comment on rumors or speculation."

IBM’s New Computer Is the Size of a Grain of Salt and Costs Less Than 10 Cents
The miniaturization of electronics has been progressing steadily for decades, but IBM just took a major leap. The company has created what it’s calling the world’s smallest computer, and it’s the size of a grain of salt.

The 1 millimeter x 1 millimeter device was unveiled at the computing giant’s IBM Think 2018 conference. Despite its diminutive size, the company claims the computer has the same amount of power as an x86 chip from 1990, which The Verge points out means it’s probably just about powerful enough to play the computer game Doom.

Unsurprisingly, though, IBM has bigger plans for it than that. The company sees the tiny computer becoming a crucial element of attempts to apply blockchain to supply chain management by collecting, processing, and communicating data on goods being shipped around the country.
To enable this, the device features a processor with “several hundred thousand” transistors, SRAM memory, a communications unit that consists of an LED that can send messages by blinking, and a photodetector that can pick up optical signals. Plugging such a tiny device into the mains is clearly not feasible, so it comes with a photovoltaic cell to power it.

Costing less than 10 cents to manufacture, the company envisions the device being embedded into products as they move around the supply chain. The computer’s sensing, processing, and communicating capabilities mean it could effectively turn every item in the supply chain into an Internet of Things device, producing highly granular supply chain data that could streamline business operations.

But more importantly, the computer could be a critical element of IBM’s efforts to apply blockchain technology to the supply chain. The company is going all in on the technology and is working with a number of large companies to use the computer to tackle everything from food supply to insurance. This week they also launched a simpler and cheaper “blockchain starter plan” aimed at start-ups and those just beginning to experiment with the technology.

Supply chain management is one of the killer apps for the technology. Blockchain is essentially a distributed ledger that can be used to track everything from transactions to inventory. Identical copies of the ledger are kept on all computers participating in the network.

Every time a new record, or block, is added to the ledger, it includes a cryptographic hash that links it back to the previous block, creating an uninterrupted chain that can be followed all the way back to the first block. Once a new block has been added to the chain all of the participants get an updated copy of the ledger, so it’s nearly impossible to tamper with, as you’d have to edit all the copies simultaneously.

The benefits of this approach are enormous for supply chain management. Previously, you’d have multiple stakeholders from suppliers to couriers to clients all using different ways of tracking items, processes, and transactions. With the blockchain all of this can be recorded in a shared ledger that updates in real time, provides every participant with the same visibility, and is entirely traceable.

Unlike tracking banking transactions or contracts, though, for the approach to work for supply chain it needs to be able to interact with the physical goods themselves. That’s where IBM’s tiny computer comes in.

The company has been working on what it calls crypto-anchors, which it describes as “tamper-proof digital fingerprints, to be embedded into products, or parts of products, and linked to the blockchain.”

These anchors carry a cryptographic message linked back to the blockchain that can be used to identify and authenticate the product. This message can be encoded in various ways; another approach the company has investigated is using edible magnetic ink to create patterns of colored dots on medicines.

But the benefit of the mini computer is that it can also collect and analyze data as it passes through the supply chain. That means as well as helping verify the product’s provenance, it could potentially give stakeholders insight into how it’s been handled or whether there’s been any attempt to tamper with it.

The tiny computer is currently a prototype, and there’s still little detail on how exactly the computer will be linked to the blockchain. But the company says it plans to start rolling out its crypto-anchor solution in the next 18 months. So keep an eye out—it may not be long before the world’s smallest computer is delivered to your door.